Nearly half of the students in the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill’s largest faculty will not be able to cover the costs of tuition fees next year.
In a survey by management studies lecturer Dwayne Devonish, who spoke to 405 Barbadian undergraduate students in the Faculty of Social Sciences on Government’s recent Budget decision to charge a 20 per cent tuition fee from next year, about 54 of the students said they would be financially able to cover these costs, while 40 per cent – 180 students – said they would not.
The remaining 47.2 per cent, meanwhile, were unsure about being able to meet the costs.
The faculty, which takes in more than half of the total undergraduate population at Cave Hill and carries one of the lowest tuition fee rates for undergraduate students ($6 000 to $6 500), was also queried on the impact of tuition fees on the Barbados economy, and over 50 per cent reported it would have an adverse effect in the short and long term.
